While more police officers patrol Tokyo’s subway and train stations in preparation for U.S. President Barack Obama’s two-day trip to Japan this week, people in other parts of the country have already sent the American President a message. On Sunday, thousands of Japanese — with estimates ranging from 6,000 to 21,000 — gathered in the Okinawan city of Nago to demand that U.S. military personnel, who have been continuously stationed on the island since 1945, find a new place to go.
According to a 2006 agreement between Tokyo and Washington, Nago has been selected as the site of a new airfield to replace the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station, located further south on the island in Ginowan city. That — and an agreement to move 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam — would comprise a major restructuring of the American military presence in Japan, and the U.S. hopes that things will proceed according to the 2006 plan — the culmination of 13 years of negotiations between the U.S. and the former Liberal Democratic Party government.
